An example of person's head care is washing of a person's head. In the industry of beauty care including hair styling and hair cutting, head washing including hair is laborious and has been desired to be automated. Also in the medical field, head washing for inpatients is laborious and has been desired to be automated.
There has been known a device disclosed in Patent Document 1, for example, for washing person's hair automatically.
FIG. 20 is a view showing a schematic configuration of a main section of a conventional automatic head washing device. As shown in FIG. 20, comb-like projections 2 are provided at regular intervals of the inner circumference of an arcuate washing unit 1 of the conventional automatic head washing device. A scalp washing nozzle 2a is provided at a tip of each of the comb-like projections 2, and a hair washing nozzle 1a is provided between the comb-like projections 2. These nozzles 1a and 2a are connected to an ejected liquid switching unit 3 via a liquid feeding path provided in the washing unit 1. The automatic head washing device ejects cleaning agent or washing agent to scalp and hair from the nozzles 1a and 2a to wash a person's head.
The washing unit 1 is driven by a washing-unit reciprocation driving section 4 via a rack 4a and a pinion 4b to be movable in the directions of an arrow 4c. With this configuration, the washing unit 1 extends a washing area of scalp and hair. The washing unit 1, the ejected liquid switching unit 3, and the washing-unit reciprocation driving section 4 are supported by a washing-unit supporting section 5. The washing-unit supporting section 5 is driven by a washing-unit rotational driving section 6 via a gear 8, and is rotatable about a spindle 7.
In the automatic head washing device, the ejected liquid switching unit 3, the washing-unit reciprocation driving section 4, and the washing-unit rotational driving section 6 are controlled in cooperation to perform the head washing operation. The use of the automatic head washing device enables washing of scalp and hair all over a person's head automatically, eliminating manual work.    Patent Document 1: JP 2001-149133 A
However, the above-mentioned conventional automatic head washing device washes the entire person's head by use of the nozzles fixed to one washing unit. For this reason, when the washing unit does not correspond to a person's head in shape or size, the washing unit nonuniformly contacts the person's head, resulting in that scalp and hair of the person's head cannot be completely washed, failing to acquire a satisfactory washing effect.
An object of the present invention is to provide an automatic head care device and an automatic head care method that can reliably care a person's head according to the shape or size of the person's head even when the washed person changes and accordingly, the person's head changes in shape or size.